How Cubans perceive Trump: From ‘deporter-in-chief’ to ‘savior of the island’ 

Juan Luis Bravo has come to think that the nights in the province of Guantánamo are darker than others, when compared to those in Havana, for example, or in Matanzas. Each day, there are usually between 20 and 22 hours without electricity. It’s as if the God who forgot about Cuba first erased them — the people of Guantánamo — from the map. He has these thoughts while softening some peas over charcoal. Soon, the lights in the house will come on: Bravo will start cooking the peas in the pressure cooker, knowing that the electricity barely lasts a few minutes. He won’t even have time to finish cooking the meal, much less sit down to a peaceful dinner, before the lights go out again. “This situation is desperate,” he says over the phone, speaking to EL PAÍS from the island. “That’s why, if you get on a bus, the first thing you hear is: ‘I hope Trump shows up, no matter what happens.’”

There are people in Cuba who ask each other a question half-jokingly, half-seriously: “So tell me, what time are the Americans showing up?” Others insinuate that it’s U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio who truly holds power in Cuba today. There are those who call Donald Trump “the savior,” as well as others who jokingly call him “Papi (Daddy) Trump.” For some Cubans, the U.S. president is now “the hope,” “the solution to the problem” and the person who will “change life in Cuba.” For others, however, Trump is “the worst thing that has ever happened to the United States.” He’s the man “who has done them the most harm” and the person who has “ruined their lives.” This is how the occupant of the White House is portrayed today in Cuba: either as a savior, or as a traitor.

Almost every night, when the power goes out in Bravo’s neighborhood, in the eastern part of the island — an area, he says, where a lot of the residents are doctors, teachers, engineers and lawyers — the neighbors gather to talk about life. They almost always end up discussing how they’ve ended up earning so little, after so many years of work. “It’s not easy to see a retired professional earning 2,400 or 3,000 pesos [a month],” he sighs. This is a little over $5.00 at the black market exchange rate. “There are people who can’t afford a chicken, whose money isn’t enough for anything,” says Bravo, 38, who now makes a living refilling matchboxes, a business that thrives during blackouts.

In recent weeks, however, the talk in the neighborhood has taken a different turn. Residents have begun counting down the days until Cuba will be “liberated.” This habit began after a U.S. delegation traveled to Havana and issued a 14-day ultimatum to release political prisoners and grant other political and economic freedoms.

“We’ve [been] counting down the days — three, two, one — until the United States comes to liberate the people,” Bravo notes.

Those who hope that Trump will set foot in Cuba, as he has promised, don’t solely reside in South Florida. They aren’t exclusively the 68% of Cuban Americans who voted for him in 2024, nor are they limited to Miami’s conservative wing. In fact, there are Cubans on the island who have begun to hope that “something will happen.” They don’t want to “see a war,” but neither do they want to fight for food or endure long blackouts… crises that they’ve lived under for decades and which their government has never been able to resolve. They point out that the population is “desperate.”

Some Cubans have even begun to feel “disappointed” as the U.S. deadline has passed and life on the island continues as before. Back in January, before declaring the oil embargo, Trump said that Cuba was “about to fall.” In February, he stated that he wanted to oversee “a friendly takeover of Cuba.” In March, he asserted: “Cuba is next.” By April, he promised “a new dawn for Cuba.” And, this month, he stated that he’s going to take over the island “almost immediately.”

None of this has happened so far. But lacking any other alternative, Trump remains a beacon of hope for some Cubans. “It’s difficult to know exactly how many people on the island would support a U.S. military intervention, but many are exhausted by the deep economic crisis and yearn for changes in the political system. At the same time, they’ve expressed concern about the potential humanitarian and political costs of external aggression,” explains Jorge Duany, former director of the Institute for Cuban Studies and a professor emeritus at Florida International University (FIU).

Although many Cubans resist the idea of having to deal with a U.S. intervention, a poll conducted by The Miami Herald in South Florida revealed that 79% of Cuban Americans favored that option as a way to end Castroism. Some Cubans on the island also concur. “This partial agreement can be attributed, to a large extent, to the failure of previous attempts to achieve a peaceful transition that would ensure substantial political and economic reforms in Cuba,” Duany asserts. The idea of a Trump maneuver on the island intensified with the recent military intervention in Venezuela, although he adds that “most Cuban-Americans seek regime change and [do not want] negotiations with the existing power structure.”

There are those, however, who cannot look favorably upon anything that comes from Trump. “Many Cubans see Trump as a savior, but I see him only as a politician… and politicians are like cheese: in the end, they all stink,” quips May Díaz, 36.

Five years ago, when she lived in Cuba, Díaz stood up against the regime during the 2021 protests, the largest ever held on the island. She was beaten, she fled the country, and now lives in the United States. For some time now, she’s been living her “worst nightmare.” She spent four months confined to her Houston home, fearing raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE): her political asylum case was dismissed, her work permit expired and she’s now one of the more than half-a-million Cubans who remain undocumented in the country. She’s currently receiving treatment for anxiety.

“I’m aware that the root cause of all the Cuban people’s misfortunes is the dictatorship… but aren’t those patterns being repeated [over here]?” Díaz asks. “The United States and Cuba have spent decades like two gossipy old women shouting things at each other from yard to yard, with Cubans caught in the middle. Miguel Díaz-Canel’s government and Donald Trump’s [administration] have taken many things away from me. The former forced me to leave, like so many others. The Trump administration has deprived me of the possibility of having a stable life.”

“The myth is dead”

Zeny K. Cruz’s eldest daughter asked her not to vote for Trump again. Cruz told her to relax, that it only happened once in her life, in the 2016 election. At that time, she recalled, “people said Trump knew about trade, about economics.” And Cruz voted for him.

In the 2024 presidential election, the mother didn’t end up voting: she was hospitalized. More than anything, she was disillusioned. But this coming November, she won’t miss the midterm elections.

Her life hasn’t been easy since last year, when her partner, Ronald Peña Quesada, was detained at the South Florida Detention Facility, nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz.” He’s bleeding from his colon and no one is treating him. He has lost 120 pounds; the food is terrible and he’s been beaten by guards for protesting. Recently, he saw the lifeless body of another Cuban detainee at the detention center: he had taken his own life by hanging himself with a bedsheet. Cruz recounts that, according to her husband and other detainees, “he kept saying he wanted to die, he kept looking at the ceiling.” At least four Cubans have died in ICE facilities during the 15 months of the second Trump administration.

That’s why Cruz is clear that she’ll never support Trump again. She says there’s nothing she can thank him for, not even the price of groceries. Having lived in the United States since 1997, she knows how much more expensive life is today. “When I arrived in this country, a 20-pound bag of rice cost $2.99. Now, the only thing Trump lowered the price of is eggs… can you live on eggs?”

In late 2024, a poll by FIU suggested that Cuban-American voters were primarily concerned about the economy and the cost of living. By then, Trump had already announced his intention to eliminate programs like humanitarian parole, as part of his plan to carry out the largest deportation in the country’s history. Cubans, however, didn’t feel targeted. They’d spent decades becoming U.S. residents first, then gaining citizenship. The 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act had long ensured their protection. Nor did they believe Trump would bite the hand that fed him, after guaranteeing him the Cuban community’s votes in Florida.

In the end, however, while the Cuban Adjustment Act didn’t disappear, the path to it did. A recent report from the Washington-based Cato Institute recorded a 99.8% drop in permanent residency approvals for Cubans between October 2024 and January 2026. While 10,984 permanent residencies were approved for Cubans during the last month of Joe Biden’s presidency, only 15 were approved in January of this year.

According to the Cato Institute, under the Trump administration, Cubans have been subjected to “an even more concerted targeting.” Since the Republican leader returned to power, some 1,992 Cubans have been deported to Havana and more than 6,000 sent to Mexico, while others have ended up in African countries. Trump is already known as the “deporter-in-chief” of the Cuban community, having overseen the deportation of some 5,377 Cubans during his two presidencies. Detentions have also increased: from fewer than 200 Cubans in ICE custody each month, the number has risen to more than 1,000.

“This has been the most difficult time for Cubans. The myth that Cubans were special is dead,” says renowned immigration attorney Willy Allen, who has worked in Florida for decades. He points out that the annual parole program for 20,000 Cuban citizens has been eliminated, along with 25,000 visas that were previously approved annually from Havana. “Cubans living in the U.S. aren’t the only ones facing problems: there are also new obstacles for people who have waited years to gain legal entry,” the lawyer notes.

Cubans fear that, should Washington intervene on the island in a similar fashion to the January 3 intervention in Venezuela, the thousands of asylum seekers in the U.S. could find themselves in an even worse limbo than the one that they’re in today. Trump himself has considered the possibility of Cubans returning to the island. “We have tens of thousands of people that were forced out of there… maybe they want to go back,” he suggested a few weeks ago.

Allen has never had so many Cuban clients before. This is because, in the past, they didn’t need to go through cumbersome legal processes in order to obtain residency in the country. He believes that it will be difficult to stop the political asylum processes for Cubans if the blow to Castro’s regime is the same as the one that the White House dealt to Maduro’s regime. “There are half–a-million Venezuelans still fighting for asylum in the courts, because even though Venezuela has a new administration, the argument is that nothing there has changed.”

Waiting to see what happens

Trump didn’t promise his voters that he would exclude Cubans from the offensive that he unleashed against migrant communities in the country. However, he did say something specific a few days ago: that he owed a debt of gratitude to those who elected him president. “I got 94% of the Cuban vote in the U.S.,” he declared to the Salem News Channel (inflating the figure, since, in reality, 68% of Cuban Americans voted for him). He then added: “I have an obligation, frankly, to do something [for Cuba].”

Mercy, who asks that her real name be withheld “not out of fear, but as a precaution,” looks out at the sea beyond the Malecón from the window of the 14th floor of the Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital, one of Havana’s most prominent medical facilities. Even there, however, water is scarce and, she sighs, the food is “terrible.” She’s hospitalized, awaiting surgery. Over the phone, she tells EL PAÍS that she’s had time to think about the day when Trump will do something about Cuba. “I’m speaking from the heart; we need change. It’s time,” the 45-year-old woman says.

“I dream of a free country, [free] from oppression and opportunistic rulers. I’d like to see the elderly without the stress of not having enough to eat, not knowing if they’ll be able to bathe, not living on the streets. What I want is a free Cuba… but people are even losing faith in Trump and Rubio, because those who have promised to save us [haven’t shown up].”

“Cuba won’t save itself,” she affirms. “[It will only be saved] if there’s a US intervention.”

It’s an idea that raises doubts for some. “What can I expect from a man who has turned his own country upside down? What’s he going to do to fix mine?” asks May Díaz from Houston. “I think something will happen in Cuba, but it’s not what we expect. For me, what’s coming is just a dictatorship with Coca-Cola.”

“We Cubans who are living in this migratory limbo [feel like] we’ve been released into a coliseum with 100 lions behind us, our hands and legs tied. Today, at this moment, I’m neither from here nor there. I have no country. Right now, there’s no place in the world that will open its arms to me and let me breathe.”

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